When the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's ("SMWS") June 2021's outturn was released, very little was said about this interesting "oily and coastal" bottling from Highland Park. I usually associate Highland Park with a sweetish, gentle profile - a little smoke, a little honey, a little heather (a distinctly dry and floral note), a little fruit... balanced, almost delicate. Even their fantastic Cask Strength Release No. 1 was bold in a balanced, thoughtful way.
"Oily" and "coastal" are words that rarely comes up when you read reviews of Highland Park. In fact, in the brief survey I did online, only the 20+ year old bottlings and SMWS bottlings were described that way. So my curiosity was piqued, and I picked some up.
The story behind it became a little more interesting as I read more on the SMWS website - they took a vatting of various 9-year old Highland Park casks and re-casked them in a fresh first-fill (presumably bourbon) cask. So, I think the takeaway is mystery maturation for 9 years (probably a combination of sherry and bourbon?) and then a likely strong bourbon influence for the last three. I presume the oily and coastal flavors come from one or more of the mystery-matured casks, but who knows!
The official tasting notes are intriguing, if a little vague:
We cooked rainbow trout with lemony caper butter on the beach over a peat fire while we nibbled on slices of toasted coconut bread spread with a creamy pineapple jam made from singed cloves, thyme and sage. Water added more of the lemon juice and salt with barbequed pineapple slices drizzled with smoked Scottish seaweed. On the palate we were served gambas a la plancha – Spanish style grilled shrimp tapas, whole unpeeled shrimps salted then cooked quickly with lemon juice – pure, simply delicious! At nine years of age, we combined selected hogsheads from the same distillery into a variety of different casks to marry. This is one of those casks.
Nicknamed "Dining by the harbor," this is bottled at a pleasantly robust 61.4%. Let's see what we get:
Nose: The neck pour is, indeed, very briny and coastal. Shrimp, vinegar, oyster brine, salt, some pepper, roasted pineapple, some herbs, some perfumed/flowery notes.
But wow - with time in the bottle, or with a little water, this really opens up into a scented garden much more suggestive of the Highland Park I'm familiar with: a grassiness, a strong floral aspect, a much more pronounced tropical sweetness to offset the brine, especially pineapple that accompanies some very light peppery char notes. Quite a nice nose.
Mouthfeel: Medium.
Palate: The initial development of taste has a lot more going on than the nose would otherwise suggest: vanilla, malted barley sugars, salt, minerality, miscellaneous seafood, charcoal, honey, floral sweetness, and some caramelized sugar. Also, lemon candy, ala Lemonheads. And a healthy dose of alcohol bloom.
Adding water, or letting it sit for some time, brings out the same tropical/floral notes from the nose: lavender, sweet lemon candy, pineapple, maybe even coconut flesh. Those coexist quite nicely with the seafood (grilled, buttered shrimp?) and the mineral brine that serves as the backbone. Very rich.
Finish: Decently long finish, spicy woodiness and pepper and lemon carry on for a bit on the tongue along with some light, earthy cigarette smoke.
Verdict: An interesting, if not traditional, take on Highland Park. I wish their core bottling had a little more of this coastal-ness in it! This is weirdly a lot closer to Caol Ila/Islay islandness than most of the straight-from-Orkney Highland Park I've had: seafood/shellfish, salt, a lot of rocky brine, alongside the expected vanilla and floral notes. I really dig the sweetness and floral notes I got when adding water, theoretically at least imparted by those last three years in the first fill bourbon cask.
Very interesting, but I can see why SMWS didn't push this bottle alongside the others in the June 2021 outturn - it's somewhat quirky, with a sweet-and-sour kind of thing going on, which I think will either really work for you, or really won't. I happen to like this odd dish of buttery grilled shrimp with pineapple and lavender, but I can see how this might put some people off.
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